As Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) (also referred to as packet data) connectivity over wireless wide area networks (WANs) continues to expand, mobile anytime, anywhere access to the Internet capabilities continue to become commonplace. The ability of such data transmission offers many advantages, including greater throughput and standardized protocol architectures. In addition to mobile Internet access, packet data enables implementation of many applications. For example, automotive telematics enable applications that usually require large amounts of data to be transferred to or from the vehicle such as: navigation route data, downloading new applications, and remotely re-flashing of vehicle control modules.
Applications that utilize this TCP/IP connectivity in mobile vehicles are usually divided between two categories: Mobile Terminated (MT) and Mobile Originated (MO). Wireless packet data networks have been optimized for MO connections, due to a typical case of a user initiating a mobile connection from a mobile terminal.
However, wireless packet data networks typically provide only a dynamically assigned IP address to the mobile terminal. This is a result of mobile users usually initiating only temporary connections to the Internet as well as limitations in current protocol standard (Ipv4) address space limit on the number of IP addresses available to wireless carriers. While static IP addresses may be allocated, they are usually costly and inefficient within the current framework.
These limitations present a problem for telematics applications that are initiated outside of the vehicle and require a mobile terminated connection. A factor affecting the viability of MT wireless packet data connectivity is that the physical medium for the data is wireless and not always available. A mobile terminal can only transmit TCP/IP data after the wireless carrier system has assigned specific physical channels for data transmission. After a period of inactivity the network may automatically reassign the channels to other packet data users and the terminal may fall into a dormant state where instantaneous data transfer is no longer possible and the terminal must again request resources for data transfer. Even when a terminal is assigned a static IP address, making a MT connection with that terminal while in a dormant state, where no physical radio channel is assigned for data transfer, is not always successful.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a method to establish mobile terminated connections to the Internet that overcomes the above disadvantages.